Generally, gas cooktop appliances include a plurality of gas burners mounted to a top surface of the appliance. Conventionally, these burners have had flames that travel radially outward from the gas burner. While this approach works well to heat a majority of the cooking utensil surface, the center most portion of the cooking utensil does not get the same heat transfer rates as the perimeter and uneven heating results.
To overcome this inherent uneven heating, inwardly directed burners are available which direct the flames radially inward from a burner having an open center. In this manner, inwardly directed burners heat a cooking utensil more uniformly by directing flames such that they converge at the center of the cooking utensil before traveling back out the sides of the cooking utensil in a radial fashion. In order to provide sufficient secondary air to ensure the fuel burns cleanly, current designs require that these inwardly directed burners have large, open centers on the top surface beneath the burners.
However, during use of the cooktop, spills and overflows can easily pass down the open center of the burners into the interior of the cooktop. This can lead to food particles accumulating both on the top surface of the cooktop beneath the gas burners as well as in the interior. Due to the proximity of the burners to the top surfaces, the accumulated food particles have a tendency to burn onto the cooktop and can be difficult to clean. Significant disassembly is often needed to clean the spills beneath the gas burners. In addition, gas burners that are fastened to the cooktops generally include cracks at assembly interfaces and include holes, supporting geometry, and fasteners that tend to accumulate food particles and are difficult to clean around. Thus, a serious drawback to this design is the ability to clean spills and users frequently cite difficulty cleaning beneath the gas burners as a complaint about modern cooktops.
Accordingly, a cooktop appliance with features for facilitating cleaning below a burner of the cooktop appliance would be useful. In addition, a cooktop appliance having an inwardly directed burner with features for ensuring proper delivery of the secondary air to the burner and improved heating of the cooktop utensil would be particularly beneficial.